I want to share some awesome recipes from MotherNatureNetwork.com. They have a great post this week called “5 Vegetarian Grilling Recipes for Summer” and slide show alone is enough to make your fire up the grill. I’m also going to share my favorite vegetarian grilling recipe with you. As the folks over at MNN.com said,

Not only are gardeners growing veggies by the bagful, but supermarket prices for fresh fruits and vegetables are also low. This is a chance for hard-core grillers to bring the sweet science of outdoor cookery to dishes  for the tofu and bean-sprout crowd.”

Check out these swoon-worthy recipes:

1. Grilled Veggie Pizza on Focaccia

This gorgeous thing prompted me to run outside that afternoon and try it. If you’ve never grilled pizza, it’s amazing. The crust is so crisp on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside because it’s cooked at such a high heat. The recipe calls for goat cheese, but I didn’t have any on hand and it was just fine.

2. Escalivada

I had never heard of this dish, but it’s a Spanish recipe that calls for fire roasting a variety of fresh veggies (which really brings out their sweetness) and serving them on top of grilled French bread.

3. Grilled Corn on the Cob

We loved grilled corn around here, but this recipe really packs on the flavor with a mixture of fresh herbs.

4. Chili Lime Sweet Potatoes

These look amazing. Garlic, chili powder and lime juice on sweet potatoes cut something like large fries. These will be on our memorial Day weekend menu.

5. Stuffed Red Peppers

Fire roasted sweet red peppers stuffed simply with goat cheese, onions and garlic. Completely yummy. I’m betting that mashed garbanzos or Northern White beans would work just as well if you don’t eat cheese.

And now my favorite vegetarian grilling recipe: Spicy Grilled Pineapple and Melon

Slice good thick triangles of watermelon and pineapple and brush them with a little bit of light olive or melted coconut oil. Sprinkle with chili powder and a little bit of black pepper and grill on a very hot grill for two minutes on each side or just until they start to caramelize. Awesome served hot or at room temperature!

I hope you’ll give my recipe a try and definitely check out the recipes on MNN.com. I’d love to hear how you like them and I’d certainly like you to share your own favorite vegetarian grilling ideas!

People automatically associate a vegetarian or vegan diet with health, but in reality, eliminating meat from the diet is not a ticket to good health. In fact, it’s just as easy to be an unhealthy vegetarian as it is to be an unhealthy omnivore.”

Here are three of her points that I wanted to share with you:

1.  Getting your diet information from unreliable sources.

As Kirkpatrick points out, the current dieting or even vegetarian celebrity should not be your nutritional resource. While it’s fine to be inspired and encouraged by celebrity vegetarians and vegans, nutritional information should come from the experts.

Find some reputable websites, books and magazines written by qualified nutritionists, researchers and medical professionals and refer to them when you have nutritional questions. When you want inspiration and motivation, feel free to turn to the celebs.

2.  Being a snackaholic.

It’s okay to snack, in fact it’s very good for you. But snacking on junk is a problem that Kirkpatrick sees with vegetarians all the time.

I frequently come across vegetarian-junkies — those who eliminate meat from their diet and fill up on chips, pretzels, and cookies due to the fact that they don’t know what else to eat. The problem is, processed snacks don’t add any bang to your nutritional buck.”

Instead of chips and cookies, reach for your favorite fruits and veggies, some rice cakes or a healthy muffin or a cup of soup.

3.  Living in a protein bubble.

Although your diet no longer consists of protein from sources that moo and cluck, the protein from foods that make no sound at all can be just as good. Good sources of plant based protein include lentils, whole soy, peanut butter, quinoa, black or red kidney beans, chickpeas and peas.”

She adds that you also may need a lot less protein each day than you think. Check out her article for the formula for figuring that out, as well as the rest of the vegetarian diet mistakes. There’s no point in eating vegetarian and still eating an unhealthy diet!

Her take on vegetarian cooking is refreshing, as you might expect.

One of the cool things about the interview is the way she encourages vegetarian parents whose kids may not be 100% on board with vegetarian eating. That would be most of us at one time or another, especially if we’ve come to our vegetarian lifestyles later on during our kids’ childhoods. Even Paul McCartney took some crap from his kids, but what he taught them stuck.

Dad would pick a turnip and slice it through and say, ‘Taste this turnip, it’s so sweet,’ ” she recalls. “And we’d be like, ‘Oh, Dad, whatever.’ We’d just make fun of him.”

But now the McCartney kids are vegetarians and Mary has even published her own vegetarian cookbook.

As the New York Times says,

Although her recipes for dishes like Lip-Smacking Minestrone, Asparagus Summer Tart, Ice-Cream Celebration Cake and Cauliflower Cheese never involve meat, they don’t necessarily shy away from eggs, butter, sugar or cheese, and dollops of piety are, mercifully, kept to a minimum.”

I love that she describes her cookbook as “food that’s healthy but doesn’t feel righteous.” This kind of agenda-free attitude seems to be her style all the way around, including when dealing with meat-eaters. She says she avoids getting into any kind of a debate with carnivores, either during social situations or otherwise. She wants her wishes to be respected, so she respects those of others. That wasn’t always the case, but she learned to adopt this attitude after doing too much battle in her youth.

I was shocked by how many debates I’d get into when I had dinner,” she recalled of those days. “ ‘Excuse me,  I just met you, I’m having dinner — why are you on my case?’”

McCartney comes across as charming, laid back and witty and her cookbook seems to follow suit.

It’s low-key, delicious but beautiful, vegetarian but far from boring. Her comments throughout the book make it seem like you’re with her in her kitchen, just having some nice conversation while she whips up something to eat. For me, that’s the best kind of cookbook.

I knew I would like McCartney when at the end of the interview (during which she makes a gorgeous eggplant dish) she tells the reporter,

You know what would be good is to get a bit of bread and butter and dip it into that. It might be our duty to do that.”

Yeah. Loved her dad when I was a kid. I think I like the daughter, too.

As Kayal explains,

Not so long ago, there was a certain image associated with being vegetarian. It usually involved Birkenstocks, lentil loaf and an agenda. There still are plenty of all three in the meatless movement, but a growing number of Americans are finding they can have cauliflower and kale at the center of the plate without a side of ideology.”

Kayal says this is because more people are eating meatless meals in an effort to improve their health, without treating those meals as motherless children. Cooking shows, cookbooks, restaurants and other venues are showcasing vegetarian cooking without making a point of the vegetarian part. Not too long ago, vegetables were considered an accompaniment for meat. Now meat is becoming a garnish for vegetables.

Movements such as “Meatless Mondays,” as well as concerns about food quality and a tighter economy, have more Americans treating meat as the side dish. And it shows in how we shop. The number of farmers markets has more than doubled during the last 10 years, and meat consumption is down 12 percent since 2007.”

Attitudes toward what makes a meal also have an awful lot to do with the vegetarian lifestyle’s new, more mainstream identity.

The idea of a ‘center of the plate’ — a large piece of meat surrounded by a starch and a vegetable — has loosened. Many Americans happily graze on Mediterranean tapas, indulge in sushi or slurp Asian soups like Vietnamese pho, where meat is an afterthought.”

As Kayal explains, this shift in our definition of a meal has also created changes in what is offered in restaurants, cookbooks, food magazines and supermarkets, widening vegetarian options and pushing the market to keep coming up with more delicious, more affordable and more accessible vegetarian fare.

Twenty years ago, vegetarians were hippies. Ten years ago, we were tree huggers. Now we’re trendsetters. I can live with that.

But according to a post this week on the Mother Nature Network website, it might be getting easy to find tasty vegetarian fast food.

Robin Shreeves, who blogs about eco-friendly food choices, recently went on a hunt for vegetarian fast food options besides the usual salad or ben burrito and she turned up some pretty promising places.

Shreeves asked her vegetarian Facebook friends to tell her about their favorite vegetarian fast food options, and she was disappointed with the usual Burger King veggie burger, Wendy’s salad and Taco Bell bean burrito that were mentioned.

I don’t know about you, but none of those options sound worth going out to eat for to me. They could be made with the many of the same creepy mystery ingredients that fast food meals that contain meat are made from.”

She has a good point and she also has some persistence, because she found a four really good options from around the country, including a national vegetarian chain where you can get vegetarian fast food in your neighborhood.

Take a look at what she came up with:

1. “In Philadelphia, there’s Hip City Veg. It’s a vegan restaurant that’s ‘fast, fresh and 100% plant based.’ The independent restaurant offers salads, plant based sandwiches, sweet potato fries and more and does a bustling business.”

I’m seeing more and more of these types of places when I travel myself. I call them “vegetarian delis” and I love them.

2. “Chicago’s Brother Tim’s Vegetarian Fast Food has nothing but vegetarian and vegan options of foods you’ll find on regular fast food restaurant menus – burgers, dogs, chili, tacos.”

I love this place’s idea: taking typical diner or fast food fare and making it vegetarian. Chicago is known for forty and fifty-year old diners and burger joints and Chicagoans take their burgers and dogs seriously, so this place must be doing something right if it’s still in business.

3. “In San Diego, Evolution Fast Food specializes in plant-based burgers, fries, organic juices and shakes.” I’ve been to Evolution and I have two words for you: awesome food.

4. “The fast-food burger chain Elevation Burger that uses organic, grass fed beef in it’s burgers has veggie burger – one that’s fire roasted and has more of a traditional burger taste and one that tastes like veggies.”

I checked the Elevation.com website and locations are mainly in the Northeast, California, Florida and Texas. If you’re in any of those areas, you’re in luck. I have a couple within day-trip distance and will definitely be checking them out.

If you know of a great place in your area to get a delicious vegetarian burger, hot dog or other classics, share with the rest of us!

In a new article on the New York Times’ dining pages this week, food writer Melissa Clark introduces us to the vegetarian butcher shop. Specifically, she introduces us to Chris Kim, the owner of Monk’s Meats in Brooklyn, which is a vegetarian butcher shop of all things. In turn, Chris Kim introduces us to the terminology and vocabulary of vegetarian meats. It’s a fun video and I learned a few things. I also like Kim, who won me over when he said, “We don’t make fake meat, we make real food.”

One of the things that Chris explains is seitan, which he says is probably the least well-known of the Asian plant-based proteins.

A wheat-based protein, seitan is also is favorite plant-based protein.

It’s not fake meat, it’s plant meat. It’s wheat meat. When you bite into seitan, it’s firm and it’s satisfying and it’s succulent.”

Watching his form the seitan into logs or loaves and then seeing the finished product, I’m absolutely ready to try this food that I have to admit I couldn’t have defined yesterday.

As Kim explains, the carbs and gluten are removed from the wheat flour, leaving behind a delicious protein product.

One “meat loaf” type log that Kim makes in the video is speckled with flax seed, herbs and other goodies that he swears make seitan look and smell like meat. Later in the nine-minute video, he chops and slices the seitan log and makes it into steaks, stews and soups that look amazing.

Check out the video for yourself to find out more about this promising plant-based protein and this new type of butcher shop – the vegetarian butcher!

Arugula

Arugula is one of the first greens to pop up in my little garden and we love it. It has a slightly bitter taste that works beautifully with sweet or more delicately flavored veggies and dressings. But arugula is also awesome for you.

In just 100 grams of this flavorful green you’ll get a hearty helping of vitamins A and C, along with nearly 16 percent of your daily recommended dose of calcium.”

Asparagus

For foodies, asparagus is the ultimate spring vegetable. It’s delicious, especially when you get it fish from the farm or garden.  It’s also a great veggie source of protein and fiber, is loaded with iron and vitamins A, C and E and according to the article,

It may even help to combat some forms of cancer, according to Eating Well, thanks to a compound called glutathione, also found in kale and Brussels sprouts.”

Onions

Spring onions are often even sweeter than those harvested in the fall. We love them in salads, soups and sandwiches. Onions are also a great food to help fight heart disease. Like garlic, they contain bioflavenoids that can also fight some types of cancer.

Rhubarb

Rhurbarb is not only absolutely delicious, it’s also a very rich source of several antioxidants. According to the post, rhubarb “contains the antioxidant catechin, a flavonol also found in green tea, dark chocolate and red wine. In addition, it’s a very good source of vitamins C and K, as well as potassium and calcium.

Spinach

Loaded with vitamins A and C and a healthy dose of iron, spinach has been a perennial chart-topper on lists of the healthiest vegetables. Spring and fall are the best times to get it; without the heat of summer, spinach is sweeter and more delicate in flavor.

Spring is just the beginning of a wonderful bounty of delicious vegetables and fruits. I think it may just be the best season for vegetarians. Grab some of these superfoods this week and taste some spring for yourself.

Ischemic heart disease or IHD, is a reduced blood supply to the heart caused by coronary artery disease.

According to this new study, eating a vegetarian diet can help prevent this very common cause of heart attacks.

The study reports that people eating a vegetarian diet are 32% less likely to develop IHD. It also found that vegetarians had a lower body fat content, lower systolic blood pressure and lower non-HDL cholesterol levels.

The study was conducted by Francesca L. Crowe and her colleagues at the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University in Cambridge, England. According to the article, the authors analyzed data from almost 45,000 men and women over a period of almost 12 years. 34% of the participants were vegetarians.

The researchers concluded that,

Consuming a vegetarian diet was associated with lower IHD risk, a finding that is probably mediated by differences in non-HDL cholesterol and systolic blood pressure.”

The article also reports that Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor of nutrition at Cornell University states that a vegetarian diet is

associated with lower risk for all types of Western diseases, including heart disease and stroke, cancers such as breast cancer, prostate cancer, coclorectal cancer and liver cancer as well as Type 2 diabetes, automimmune diseases and obesity.”

If you needed even one more reason to commit to being a vegetarian, I should think this new study would do it.

According to Ecorazzi.com, Bill Gates’ post focuses on the fact that the current diet on this planet is not sustainable and accurately points out that since no one expects every person on the planet to become a vegetarian, we’ll have to come up with some alternate solutions.

As Gates points out, our meat consumption rate has doubled in the last twenty years and is expected to have doubled again by the year 2050.

All of that meat consumes an awful lot of feed and water while it’s alive and that’s the problem.

Put simply, there’s no way to produce enough meat for 9 billion people. Yet we can’t ask everyone to become vegetarians. We need more options for producing meat without depleting our resources.”

No one will argue that Bill Gates is a smart man when it comes to economics and he has a solution that not only preserves our resources but also boosts food manufacturing.

Gates suggests that we produce far more vegetarian meat (indeed, says we’ll HAVE to) and also talks about two companies that are already doing a great job of that.

Companies like Beyond Meat and Hampton Creek Foods are experimenting with new ways to use heat and pressure to turn plants into foods that look and taste just like meat and eggs. I tasted Beyond Meat’s chicken alternative and was impressed. I couldn’t tell the difference between Beyond Meat and real chicken. Beyond Eggs, Hampton Creek Foods’ egg substitute, doesn’t contain the high cholesterol of real eggs.”

I think that a lot of companies take Bill Gates seriously and I hope that his post will resonate with companies that have the capability to create new vegetarian options and also make them appealing to non-vegetarians. I agree that vegetarian meats are a possible solution to the predicted food supply and resource issues.

What do you think?

I was reminded of this yesterday when I discovered this wonderful post on the terrific Treehugger.com. It’s an article by Jaimy Heimbuch called “8 Joyful Reasons to Cook Vegetarian Recipes at Home” and it’s such a delightfully simple and well, joyful article that I want to share some of her reasons with you. Please do go over and read the whole article; it’s a wonderful read. But let me
share my three favorites with you:

1) Vegetarian meals are satisfying to the point that meat is superfluous.

Heimbuch admits that she fell into the habit of tossing meat dishes into the weekly mix out of desperation. We all know what hectic schedules do to meal planning and preparation, and Heimbuch says that she and her family started eating out quite a bit or roasting up a chicken for dinner because it was easy. But when she made a conscious commitment to try new vegetarian recipes, she rediscovered how satisfying (and easy) vegetarian meals could be.

By requiring myself to cook new vegetarian recipes, I rediscovered how delicious, how satisfying all-veggie meals are and that we really don’t notice the lack of meat on the plate when we skip it. So many vegetarian dishes are flavorful and hearty, completely filling and interesting to the senses.”

2) A new recipe a day keeps you excited about cooking at home.

A new recipe a day makes me look forward each morning to what I will create that day for the first time. Novelty keeps our interest, and maintaining and interest in what we’re cooking keeps us from slipping back into old habits like I did.”

3) Shopping for ingredients is an event in itself

This one really resonated with me and made me smile. I understand it well. It applies to going out to my garden to pick perfectly ripe produce I gre myself and also to spending a leisurely Saturday cruising my favorite stalls at the farmer’s market.

Shopping for ingredients has become a joy again, even in busy markets. I enjoy the challenge of selecting the perfect ingredients, based on color, shape and ripeness. I love taking the time to find the little extras like herbs for garnish or variety. I love looking for items on my list and discovering items I hadn’t heard of before.”

All of these reasons are “smaller” than saving the planet or respecting the lives of animals, but a lot of the joy and satisfaction in life is made up of lots of “small” things, don’t you think?